The excitement at the end of rationing on July 3rd 1954, which had built up during the preceding weeks, faded quickly. By the following week, people were ordering their requirements of the previously restricted foods with panache. Sandwiches were spread with butter and margarine was banned from many pantries by people who swore never to touch it again. Joints of meat and rich pies rapidly become the norm and if any ration books escaped the ash-bin they were thrown into the back of a drawer as novelties to show the children when they were grown up and could laugh at it all.
As the grocery shop closed its doors behind its final customer of the day, Helen Gunner looked at advertisements and drooled over pictures of wedding cakes made with butter, and elaborately iced, making the shortages of the war years and those that followed melt away from memory. She wondered if she would be ordering one of her own before 1954 ended. Ernie Griffiths showed no sign of becoming bored with her, in fact there was hardly an evening that they didn’t meet.
She collected the simple ingredients she had bought and, dragging her gaze from the magnificence of the wedding cakes, set off home to make a butter-based sponge with real cream filling for tea the following day, which was a Sunday. Ernie was coming to tea and – that important development in the ritual of courtship – he was bringing his parents with him. Everything depended on whether her parents got on with Mr and Mrs Griffiths. Dad was all right, he wouldn’t make trouble while they were there, although he would certainly kick up a fuss when they’d gone.
No, it was Mam. As long as she didn’t start showing off to Mr and Mrs Griffiths about how much better the Gunners were than most of the inhabitants of Pendragon Island, all would be well, and Ernie might pop the question. From what she’d heard of the Westons, her Mam came second only to Old Gladys.
Helen’s mother, Gloria, had begun life as Gwen Dunn and when she reached the age of fourteen she had decided that she deserved a more interesting name. So, against all her mother’s pleadings she had renamed herself Gloria and it was as Gloria she had been known ever since. Mrs Wilfred Gunner wasn’t really to her taste either but she didn’t know how to change it into something like De Gunnair, or she would have persuaded Wilfred to do so.
When her daughter Helen was born she had visions of the girl living out her dreams for her and becoming someone famous and important, but Helen had ignored her mother’s attempts to launch her into the world of the prestigious, and left school at fourteen to start work in a grocery store. The only compensation for Gloria was that it was the largest one in the area and her daughter was quickly promoted to shop display and window dresser, besides running the provisions side of the business.
And now, when her daughter had reached the age when she might reasonably be expected to marry someone of note, Gloria had once more seen her hopes deflated. Helen had brought home one of the Griffithses. It was more than a loving mother could stand.
Helen knew there would be trouble when the two sets of parents met and had warned Ernie not to be worried by her mother’s behaviour. Ernie and she had been able to laugh at Gloria’s condescending attitude once they were free from the house. But this was different. She could hardly warn Ernie’s parents to ignore her mother’s little digs!
The event was worse than Helen had expected. She and Ernie shared looks of embarrassment as Gloria altered her voice, quirked her little finger and performed in what she considered to be a well-bred, mannerly way. She talked with a clipped politeness and condescendingly helped them understand the correct way to hold their knives by reminding her daughter. “Remember, dear, not like a pen,” and that was embarrassing enough. But her father joined in too.
Wilfred had been primed. That much was obvious to his anxious daughter. He didn’t hide the fact that he was unhappy about his daughter marrying into the Griffiths family, although he got on exceptionally well with Ernie.
He was normally such a quiet, inoffensive man, but goaded on by looks from Gloria, he insisting on discussing why Frank had been arrested, and brought up more than once the suspicious fact of Basil working for the place that had been robbed, although Janet and Hywel, with voices getting louder with each telling, explained that their sons were not, and never had been, under arrest for the crime.
“Frank was only helping with enquiries as he had been at the scene previous to the robbery,” Janet said with the light of battle in her eyes.
“And our Basil was knocked out before he even knew a robbery was taking place!” Hywel said. “How many more times have I got to tell you? You must be twp if you don’t understand what I’m saying. Innocent they are, the pair of them and I’ll fight anyone who thinks different!”
Hywel was boiling with rage but the imploring glances from both Janet and Helen persuaded him to hold back from attack. “Like a bad-tempered bull-dog on a frayed lead,” was how Janet described it later. So he managed to keep his temper reasonably intact, ignoring Gloria’s attempts to remind them again via a reminder to her daughter, of the “mannerly” way of using a fork. “Index finger above the prongs, dear.”
He swallowed anger with each mouthful, as the constant gibes came fast and furious. According to Gloria, the Griffithses were honoured to be invited, not everyone was as understanding about a family known to the police. Janet saw her husband’s face getting redder and redder and knew the end was near. It happened as Gloria began to serve pudding, which Gloria insisted was called dessert. He threw a dish of blancmange over Wilfred and told Gloria she was lucky he was “mannerly” enough to hold onto the dish.
Gloria left the room and was followed by Wilfred and, as the door closed behind them, the unrepentant Hywel burst into laughter and was joined by Janet and Ernie and Helen. Life with the Griffithses was not going to be easy, Helen thought, and neither would it be dull.
“I was only trying to help,” Gloria’s voice wailed through the door, and Helen began to rise.
“I’d better go and see that they’re all right,” she said.
Hywel held her back and pointed to the table’s centre-piece.
“What about a piece of your cake, Helen?” he whispered. “Better than lumpy blancmange. Now, quick, before they come back and chuck us out.”
Ernie stayed back when his parents left and in the private darkness of the porch, while Wilfred and Gloria called for their daughter to, “Come in now, this minute”, Ernie proposed and Helen accepted.
“Best we wait a while before telling our mams and dads,” a happy Ernie suggested. “At least till the blancmange is dry.”
Another couple who were seeing each other very often as the summer wore on, was Rhiannon Lewis and Charlie Bevan. Although they hadn’t walked out together, Rhiannon’s father had seen to that. He had forbidden his daughter to talk to Charlie, insisting that he was a jailbird and a convicted thief. No amount of argument would convince Lewis that Charlie would or could change. Until Dora stepped in.
“Don’t you know that forbidden fruit is always the most coveted?” she said, when she overheard him warning Charlie off one evening. “Besides, what’s it to do with you, Lewis Lewis? You walked out of this house to live in sin with Nia Martin, so what we do is not your concern any more.”
But Rhiannon still looked up and down the street in case he was near before running across and knocking on Charlie’s door. On the day she heard that someone had been arrested for the robbery of the warehouse, she went across to let Charlie know.
“They won’t be bothering you again,” she said.
“Till next time,” he said sadly. “I don’t blame them, mind, once a thief always a thief. That’s what most people believe.”
“I don’t. I know you’re trying to make a success of your life.”
“Thanks, Rhiannon. You don’t know what a help that is, to know you trust me, to know you care.”
The word “care” seemed intimate and suggested a closeness that didn’t really exist and it made her blush. She started to walk away but he held her arm and said,
“I’d be so proud if you really cared about me, like I care for you.”
“Of course I care. You’re a good man and I know you’ll do well.”
“That sounds real boring. ‘A good man’. I want you to think of me as something more than that. I like you a lot, Rhiannon, and I enjoy the time I spend with you. D’you think you could come out with me some time? For a walk perhaps? Or to the Gomer Hall dance?”
“I don’t think Dad would be pleased,” she said, hesitantly.
“Good, I wasn’t thinking of asking your Dad.”
She smiled and said, “All right, I’ll go for a walk with you and Gwyn on Sunday morning. Later, perhaps we can try the dance class. I haven’t been since I stopped going with Jimmy Herbert.”
One Sunday afternoon they took a very excited Polly to the crowded beach. Families were making the most of a sunny weekend and had come in their droves to enjoy a day out on the sands. The puppy smashed his way through sandcastles and picnics and headed for the waves, gambolling through them to the consternation of some and the amusement of others. Most people presumed they were a family and for Rhiannon, her outings with Charlie and Gwyn and the pup were beginning to feel like it too.
They began to go out most evenings. After a week or two, when most people had seen them together and stopped criticising her choice of companion, they began going to the dance class where they met Viv and Joan, Jack and Victoria and many others. Dora willingly looked after Gwyn, for whom it was a luxury to have someone care enough to stop him wandering the streets as he had done before his father was released from prison.
Charlie, with his easy-going manner, and with Rhiannon beside him, soon became an accepted member of the crowd. Then they began to join the crowd on Sundays for cycle rides, their walks and the rides including Gwyn. Their friendship rapidly flowered into something Dora suspected was love.
Lewis Lewis was angry; and hurt because his daughter refused to obey him any more, and he complained to Nia Martin one Sunday morning as they worked in their large garden.
“She’s your little girl no longer, Lewis, love,” Nia smiled as she pruned back a straggling forsythia bush. “She’s grown up and doesn’t need your advice any more.”
“If I’d been at home she wouldn’t even be talking to that Charlie Bevan. I wouldn’t have allowed it even if she is grown up. But I suppose by living here with you I’ve lost the right to say my piece.”
“Any regrets?” Nia asked.
“None.” He smiled at her affectionately. “This is the happiest part of my life and I wouldn’t change a thing.”
“I know you still miss being a part of the family and occasionally feel the loss, don’t be afraid to say it.”
“All right, I do find it strange to think that Viv is getting married in a few weeks and I don’t have a part in the build-up like I did when Lewis-boy was marrying Eleri. But I couldn’t be happier, you must know that.”
“I know it.” She kissed him on the cheek and handed him an armful of branches. “Shall we have a bonfire this evening?”
“For heaven’s sake stop cutting then, or we’ll set the road alight!”
“I do love an excuse to stay outside.” She looked up at the oldest tree in the garden, an ancient ash. “We’ll have to do something about this tree soon. Several branches look dead and next winter will see an end to it I think.”
“Don’t try and do it yourself, Nia. We’ll make that a job for me, and Barry when he comes. Right?”
“If you say so, although I can use a saw, you know.”
“You can, but please don’t.”
“Come on, let’s get the bonfire built.”
Dora was very busy. She didn’t spend a lot of time worrying about her daughter, trusting Rhiannon’s good sense and hoping she wouldn’t be let down by the appealingly gentle Charlie. Apart from the usual warnings, about ‘giving in’, she allowed her to live her life without too much interference.
Beside the café which she ran with Sian Heath-Weston, she and Sian were using every spare moment deciding on the buffet menu for Joan and Viv’s August wedding. Sian had made the cake, thankful that with rationing finally abandoned, she could follow a pre-war recipe and not struggle with replacements for the best ingredients. It was already covered with almond marzipan and awaited the final coats of icing before she somewhat nervously began the decoration.
Dora had practised a few of the most intricate designs on plates and dishes and Sian had done the same. Between them they felt moderately confident of achieving something of which Gladys would approve.
Gomer Hall, where the dances were held, was not a glamorous place, ‘functional rather than ornate’, was how Sian described it, but it had an adequate kitchen and there were enough trestle tables and chairs to easily accommodate the number of guests. Most families had a special tablecloth, stored in blue tissue and brought out only for special occasions. Begging and pleading didn’t suit Dora’s personality but as it was for her son’s wedding she swallowed her pride and did so, asking everyone she knew to lend her one, and had managed to acquire fifteen white, starched cloths that would be the foundation of the table decoration.
Although rationing was no longer in force, there were many things still not easily available and cake decorations was one item they found difficulty obtaining. More scrounging, this time on the part of Sian, produced a pre-war bride and groom for the top of the cake, and Dora developed her newly found skills in making roses from icing, coloured a garish pink with cochineal.
Once the cake was ready to be iced, Sian came to seven Sophie Street and they told everyone to stay away until the job was finished. Shutting themselves in the kitchen, they began. Trying out each stage of the work before applying it to the cake, they worked in almost complete silence, following the plan they had drawn and each one concentrating on her section of the pattern. Getting the right consistency for the various designs was the hardest. Firm enough to loop without dropping in some sections, and soft enough to make the tiny flowers in another, they often felt despair approaching, but each was encouraged by the other until they recovered from the disappointments, scraped the area clear and began again.
When it was finished, they hugged each other and laughed in relief. It was finished, their first wedding cake and it was perfect. White cake, pink roses, and leaves and stems that were white with a tinge of pink.
“It isn’t moving from this spot until the wedding,” Dora announced. “If that mother of yours wants to see it she can come here, right?”
“Right!” Sian laughed. “And we’ll warn her not to breathe, shall we?”
They arranged for Gladys and Arfon to come that evening to admire their handiwork and they arrived at seven-thirty, with Sally and Ryan and Joan and Viv.
“What the ’ell are vol-au-vents?” Viv demanded when he looked at the list of food Dora was planning to produce.
“Stop behaving like a lout and pretending to be as ignorant as the hoi polloi, and tell your mother how thrilled we are with what she is doing for us,” Joan demanded.
“Thank you, Joan,” Dora smiled, “time someone reminded him about his manners. Now if you promise not to touch, come and look at the cake.”
Standing beside Sian now, and listening to the ooh’s and ahh’s, Dora couldn’t help wondering at the remarkable changes that had taken place in the Lewis household in the past months. Entertaining people like the Westons in her small kitchen would have been unheard of a year ago. And now she was soon to be related to them. Her son was marrying the daughter of Sally and Ryan Fowler Weston, and she was running her own business, in partnership with Sally’s twin sister, Sian. And most remarkable of all, their formidable mother Gladys, was actually congratulating her on her skill.
“Now the cake is done, we ought to concentrate on Jack and Victoria. Their wedding isn’t much more than a month away and so far as we know, nothing has been arranged,” Sian said.
“Victoria and Jack insist that everything is in the hands of Victoria’ s mother,” Dora explained. “They’ll ask for help if they want it.”
Gladys sniffed. “I do what I can, dears, but Jack has always been stubborn. In fact all my children are strong-minded. I booked Montague Court for Joan and Viv and they went straightaway and cancelled it. I thought that was bad enough, but Jack and Victoria are worse! I can’t even persuade Victoria to agree a guest list. And as for Jack, Sian dear. You and I both know he has always been stubborn, but surely a wedding has to follow some conventions?”
“Planning it all themselves aren’t they?” Sally said.
“You mustn’t mind if they do. Victoria is shy and I don’t think Jack wants her to be unhappy on her wedding day.”
“Sally’s right,” Sian said. “Jack has made it clear that they want a small ceremony, and as few people there as possible.”
“Even Jack has to accept that the family is involved.” Gladys’s voice was loud and disapproving and Dora quickly changed the subject.
“If you’ve all finished breathing over our cake you can sit down and Sian and I will fetch you some tea.”
“I think she means bring us some tea, dears,” Gladys said in a audible whisper.
“Any more of that and she can fetch it herself!” Dora hissed towards Sian, her blue eyes blazing.
Barry put his business, including the showroom and workshop, in the hands of an estate agent and told him he wanted a quick sale. Using every moment he could spare between appointments and clearing the flat, he finished decorating the place and making it look as attractive as possible. As a going concern it had to look tempting, if he wanted to get rid of it before Viv and Joan’s wedding.
At the flat above Temptations, he sorted out the mountain of equipment he had gathered for the photography business he no longer intended to run. Most of it would be included in the sale of the business but there were a few special items he would dispose of separately. A large advertisement in the trade magazine would hopefully see the lot cleared, then he could concentrate on the new stage of his life, a stage that would include Caroline and Joseph as a close part of it.
Caroline had no idea of what he planned. Barry didn’t want to tell anyone, even his mother, before everything was settled. He had taken Basil’s and Frank’s words to heart and faced up to sharing his life instead of doing what he wanted and leaving Caroline on the periphery of his dreams and plans. Going to the new plastics factory he got himself a job which would start a week after Joan and Viv’s wedding, which was arranged for August 14th.
With only a couple of weeks before Joan and Viv’s wedding, Gladys and Sian, Joan and Megan were at the Lewis’s house liaising with Dora over last-minute changes and discussing what they would each be wearing. It was Saturday evening, and Rhiannon came in after closing the shop, with Charlie beside her.
“Mam, I’ve just seen Mrs Jones, Victoria’s mother. She said Victoria has disappeared.”
“What on earth is the child talking about?” Gladys demanded to the others.
“That’s what she said. And she went around to Jack’s place and Jack’s father told her that Jack has gone away for a few days.”
“Are you saying that both Jack and Victoria have disappeared?” Sian frowned.
“Together?” echoed Gladys, in the tone used by Lady Bracknell when she said “A handbag?”
“Apparently. He didn’t say where he was going, just that he and Victoria needed a break.”
Dora couldn’t help feeling a bit gleeful at the consternation the couple’s departure had caused. She felt quite lighthearted when, on the following Monday, several members of the family, including Viv and Joan, received postcards with the local postmark of Pendragon Island, telling them the young couple were going on holiday. There was so much consternation about them travelling together before they were married, that for a while no one thought about anything else.
“They’ll be back for the wedding,” Gladys assured them repeatedly. “Jack is Vivian’s best man.”
But when the eve of the wedding arrived the only news anyone had of the couple’s whereabouts was another card, posted in Eastbourne, telling them all that they regretted they wouldn’t be back to see Joan and Viv married.
Gladys went from the Lewises’ to her daughter’s house and back again hoping for news, bending the taxi driver’s ear about the selfishness of the younger generation.
When they were once again gathered in Dora’s house where she and Sian were making their last-minute preparations for the wedding on the following day, the only news was another card, this time from London. Ignored by Sian and Dora, who were frantically checking food lists for their largest and most important occasion, Gladys made herself a cup of tea and demanded to know what they were going to do about Jack.
“Jack’s too old for us to send out a search party, Mother,” Sian said rather more sharply than usual. “Now could you go in the other room while I take these pastries out of the oven? I don’t want to risk dropping them on the floor.”
“What are they thinking of?” Gladys wailed from the doorway. “It’s that girl’s idea, all this. I know it. That’s what you get when you marry beneath you!”
“Oh, Mother,” Sally sighed, wiping her arm across her hot forehead, “Forget Jack and think about Joan. Tomorrow she is getting married to Viv, who is hardworking, clever and who loves her. Let’s concentrate on that, shall we?”
“And there’s another one, that Vivian Lewis.” Gladys seemed to have forgotten she was standing only a few feet from Viv’s mother. “Refusing to hold their reception in Montague Court, indeed. As if what he wants should matter a toss! Why can’t you see what a disaster it all is?”
“Mother! I’m worried about my son, I’ll be relieved when he and Victoria come home and explain, but, as Sally pointed out, Dora and I have a wedding to deal with tomorrow, and what can I do about Jack and Victoria anyway? Except wait and hope that they return without coming to any harm?”
“Harm? You think they’re in danger?”
“No, Mother,” Sian interrupted, “but you might be! Please move back a bit, I want to put these hot baking trays outside.”
“You shouldn’t be doing this for your niece’s wedding, Sian. And what about the arrangements already made for Jack’s wedding?” Gladys went on. “Do I confirm them? It’s only a couple of weeks away.”
“Put everything on hold,” Sally said, and Sian agreed.
“Tell everyone we’ll let them know when we know ourselves.”
“That should give the gossips something to chew over,” Dora chuckled. “You Westons are having quite a time of it, aren’t you?”
“If people knew their place none of this would have happened!”
Dora’s blue eyes took on a warning sparkle and she took a deep breath to respond, but instead she shared a smile with Sian and let the matter drop. Wherever Jack was, and whatever trouble he was making, the wedding of her son, to Gladys’s granddaughter, was starting in about fifteen hours and that had to be everyone’s priority.
The morning of the wedding day began with moist, thin cloud which burned away as the sun rose and strengthened. Gladys looked out of her bedroom window and wondered how it would all turn out. She had to admit that even if Viv wasn’t a son of one of the better families in Pendragon Island, he was honest and he certainly had a good understanding of business. She went downstairs in her dressing gown to make her morning cup of tea, a routine she still hated not having done for her, and made up her mind that she would enjoy the day and think positively about her darling Joan’s future.
At least they hadn’t invited Rhiannon’s awful new boyfriend, a convicted thief. He wouldn’t go to the church, would he? She shuddered delicately at the thought. What were the Lewises thinking about, allowing their daughter to mix with such people? A convict was what he was, and there was no wrapping that up in delicate words to make it acceptable. The Lewises were about to be related to the Westons, surely they ought to show a bit of social conscience?
When she walked into the church, the first person she saw was Rhiannon. She sighed with relief to see that the seat beside her was empty. At least she’d had the decency to leave that Charlie Bevan out of it. Gladys studied Rhiannon and admitted to herself the girl was looking very pretty. She wore a flouncy blue silk dress with a low neck, frilled with paler blue ruffles, and a hat that seemed to frame her thick red-brown hair and make it look more luxuriant. The Lewises were quite handsome, if in a common way, so at least Joan’s children would be beautiful.
She turned away to smile regally at the other guests as they arrived and were seen to their places by the ushers. Turning back to Rhiannon she covered her mouth to stifle a gasp. Charlie was there and with him his son, Gwyn. Gwyn sat beside Rhiannon but Charlie walked towards the front pew and stood there beside an elegantly dressed and startlingly handsome Viv. Surely they couldn’t – they wouldn’t – She turned to clutch Arfon’s arm and whispered, “Arfon, dear. Tell me, please tell me I’m mistaken. They haven’t asked that Charlie person to be best man, have they?”
“Afraid so, my dear. Grin and bear it. This is Joan and Viv’s day and the choice has to be theirs.”
Gladys thought she would never live down the shame, but at that moment, the organist stopped what he was playing and began the wedding march. She turned to see her granddaughter walk through the doors, a vision of loveliness, on her father’s arm, and her twin sister behind her organising a recalcitrant train, and she forgot all her worries and lost herself in utter enjoyment.
Jack was working in a bar, serving drinks with skills learned in The Railwayman’s over the past weeks. Sitting in the back room, having prepared lunch for the owners of the public house and their family, plus food for a few guests, Victoria sat at a small table on which stood a casserole and dishes of vegetables. She looked up expectantly as the door opened a few moments later and Jack smiled at her, kissed her and sat down opposite to share the meal.
“Are you sorry we’ve missed Joan and Viv’s wedding?” she asked as she served him.
“Not a bit. This is much more fun,” Jack smiled. He looked at his watch. “The wedding’s all over now, except the party tonight and I’m a little bit sorry to miss that, aren’t you?”
“It would have been fun, with all of your friends there.”
“Our friends,” he corrected gently. “Everything I have is yours and that includes my best friends.”
“Oh Jack, this is scary, but it’s fun too. Imagine everyone’s faces if they knew where we were. They’d never believe we were here, in Scotland, waiting to be married in Gretna Green.”
Jack had perfected his skill as barman during their time in Scotland, and Victoria had learned to cook for a crowd and had enjoyed experimenting with new recipes. In their spare time they had walked around the lovely border countryside and taken photographs and treated the weeks of waiting as a honeymoon but without the loving. That would have to wait, Jack had decided. When they were back in Wales and settled in their own home, then he could introduce her to the magical joy of sharing their lives completely.
He looked at Victoria as she rose to take their dishes over to the large sink below the window. Her hair was escaping from its pins and her face was flushed from cooking. How lucky he was to have found her and faced the criticism and teasing. There would never be a moment in the years ahead when he would forget how lucky he was.
“Come here, Victoria my love,” he whispered. “I have an overwhelming desire to kiss you.”
Victoria had relaxed and opened out in the absence of Gladys and Arfon and the rest of Jack’s family. Warm and loving, and finding the natural social skills that had previously been hidden by shyness, she had easily made friends among the softly spoken Scots in the friendly border town.
Attending to the bedrooms when guests were staying was nothing new and cooking meals – sometimes at short notice – no longer held terrors for her.
“Nothing could be more terrifying than working for your grandmother, Jack,” she admitted, making him laugh at one of her rare and mild complaints.
Wild flowers, opening a little later than at home, delighted her. And the wild animals with which the fields abounded seemed less afraid and would allow them to step quite close.
“Better not tell Basil, Frank and Ernie,” she warned.
Frank was working in the house Jack and Victoria had bought to begin their married life. While time dragged a little for them in Scotland, impatient as they were to spread their news, Frank was thinking how quickly the next couple of weeks would pass. He had to finish papering the main bedroom that day to keep to his schedule and it was going hard. He was counting the days to the time Victoria and Jack were due to return and there didn’t seem enough hours in the day or days in the week for him to complete the surprise Jack had arranged for his bride.
He had promised to finish redecorating the whole house and make sure all the furniture was back in place and the curtains re-hung, and time was too short. He was even missing the party to celebrate Viv Lewis’s wedding. If ever a man suffered, he moaned to himself.
If only he had persuaded Ernie to forget Helen for a few nights and help, the task wouldn’t have been so daunting. But he and Ernie were not the friends they once were. He wondered whether Basil might take pity on him and give a hand. To help the job along he promised himself a pint after hanging three more lengths and cheated by choosing short ones.
Gladys put on a brave expression, but the wedding was a disappointment. Apart from Joan making such a stunningly beautiful bride of course. But the day wasn’t over and there were other shocks awaiting her that day. The first being the arrival of Terrence Jenkins, a cousin of the Jenkinses of Montague Court, on the arm of her other granddaughter, Megan.
The last she had heard of him was a whispered hint from Sally that he had not been very gentlemanly towards Megan. That was after two thugs had invaded her Christmas party and picked a fight with him. Such embarrassment her family had suffered. She frowned at Megan and beckoned her over.
“Why is Terrence here, dear? I thought after his dreadful, loutish behaviour at Christmas he wouldn’t show his face.”
“I invited him, Grandmother.”
“But why?”
“Oh, we had a few misunderstandings and I thought if we cleared them up we might be friends again.”
“I suppose we might give him another chance,” Gladys frowned. She couldn’t face another confrontation at the moment. And, she reminded herself, he is a Jenkins of Montague Court. “Invite him to tea tomorrow,” she added.
Terrence had written several times to Megan and receiving no reply hadn’t deterred him. The letter from Jack, with postcards enclosed which Jack asked him to post in various parts of London and Sussex, was intriguing, and using the excuse of visiting his family, he had arrived at Megan’s door in time to be invited to attend the wedding of Viv and Joan.
He hadn’t been able to forget Megan, and even though he had probably ruined things by his lack of patience, rushing her into taking their friendship too far too soon, he thought it worth another try.
Megan had greeted him coolly when he had knocked on her door, but there had been an expression in her dark eyes that had given him hope, and when he asked her to go with him to have tea at Montague Court with his cousins, Margaret and Edward, she had accepted. That had been a few days ago and now they were attending the wedding of Megan’s sister and, albeit through gritted teeth, Gladys Weston had invited him to tea on the following day.
Megan had always been as outrageous as her wealth and social position had allowed. Although it had usually been her twin, Joan, who set the pace and dared the most audacious dares, Megan had been a slightly more hesitant but nevertheless willing partner. With Joan married and Jack about to do the same she had felt an upsurge of resentment fired by the fear of loneliness, and opening the door to see Terrence there, smiling his special smile, she had seen a way to bring a bit of excitement into her life.
It was more than the chance to upset her family, although that was something she would enjoy. She knew that amongst the boys and men she had encountered, Terrence Jenkins was the only one with whom she could imagine falling in love. There was a strange restlessness about her, a disturbance of her deepest nerve endings when she saw him, and when he touched her it was electric. Perhaps she wouldn’t need to be alone for long.
Dora watched her daughter dancing with Charlie and saw a love affair in the making. Charlie was far from handsome. Ordinary-looking in fact, she mused. But then, her Lewis had been the best looking young man in the town and look how far that had got her! Here she was celebrating their son’s wedding on her own and Lewis was skulking about with Nia Martin on his arm, wanting to be part of it all and at the same time wishing he were miles away.
Amid the celebratory chatter and the dancing and laughter, there was an undercurrent of concern for the whereabouts of Jack and Victoria. Mrs Jones, Victoria’s mother was the only one aware of the secret and she smiled to herself as she watched the family discuss the disappearance in their various ways. Another two weeks and they will all know the truth. Two whole weeks. It was a long time to hold the secret. More than two weeks had already passed since they left, each day dragging itself to a close. Not sharing Frank’s workload, she knew that for her, the next two would go so slowly.
Two weeks after Joan and Viv were married, Victoria and Jack walked down the aisle in the small village of Gretna Green. Their wedding day was as perfect as Jack had promised. A large number of local people who had got to know the young couple turned up to see Victoria arrive at the church in her beautiful dress. And they stayed to cheer and throw flowers as they walked from the church to the Blacksmith’s Shop, an ancient site where the traditional anvil weddings had taken place for centuries.
For this second ceremony, several people dressed up in historic garb and one man played the role of the marriage priest, another became “father of the bride” and sat there looking fierce with a shotgun on his arm, while the happy couple repeated the traditional Scottish oath.
It was all great fun and once it was over they both longed to return home and tell heir friends all about it. But both admitted to feeling the sadness of leaving their new friends behind.
“We’ll be back,” Jack promised her. “Next year perhaps, as an old established married couple, we’ll be back.”